tending girl, who sits apart silently listening to another's voice, than any one of the anxious group of candidates for promotion to the music-stool, whose countenances occasionally display the conflicting emotions of hope and fear, triumph and disappointment.
There are, however, amongst men, and women too, certain individuals whose souls may be said to be imbued with music as an instinct. It forms a part of their existence, and they only live entirely in an atmosphere of sound. To such it would be a cold philosophy to teach the expediency of giving up the cultivation of music altogether, because of the temptations it involves; and yet to such individuals, above all others, music is the most dangerous. To them it may be said, that, like charity, though in a widely different sense, it covers a multitude of sins; for such is its influence over them, that while carried away by its allurements, they scarcely see or feel like moral agents, so as to distinguish good from evil; and thus they mistake for an intellectual, nay, even sometimes for a spiritual enjoyment, the indulgence of that passion, which is but too earthly in its associations.
I will not say that music is a species of intoxication, but I do think that an inordinate love of it may be compared to intemperance, in the fact of its inciting the passions of the human mind so much more frequently to evil than to good. We are warranted by the language of Scripture to believe, that music is a powerfully pervading principle in the universe of God. The harmony of the spheres is figuratively set forth under the idea of the morning stars singing together, and the Apocalyptic vision abounds with allusions to celestial choirs. Indeed, so perfectly in unison is music with our ideas of intense and elevated enjoyment, that we can scarcely imagine heaven without the hymning of the praises of the Most High by the voices of angels and happy spirits.
